Kudos on getting into new territory! Having no studio myself, I cannot offer you advice apart from the fact that is as much or even more about connecting to people than about lightning etc. The ,ore energy you put into it, yhe better the pictures.

Kudos on getting into new territory! Having no studio myself, I cannot offer you advice apart from the fact that is as much or even more about connecting to people than about lightning etc. The ,ore energy you put into it, yhe better the pictures.

I am neither a portrait photographer nor a user of flash, so I can't offer much technical advice in those areas. However, I would like to say that I quite like this image, in particular - the negative space around the girls (and the use of black especially). The space above the tallest girl's head is sufficient enough so her bent head appears to be an act of affection towards her sister rather than an attempt to cram herself into the frame, I even think the mild cutting off of the young one's behind works well. The affection between the two is also captured perfectly.

Not sure if this first attempt is by chance or thoroughly thought out effort, but for a first attempt, it is quite good in my opinion.

- Girl nr 1 has too harsh and too many shadows in her face. Like with halloween holding a torch-light under your chin kind of photo. She also has a somewhat cramped expression.

- Clothes are distracting and far too light. This was probably a spontaneous test shot, but next time ask them to wear darker and possibly matching clothes so the faces will stand out more. Otherwise tone the clothing down in post by applying excessive gradients.

- I presume one of your lights was on the top-right somewhere, moving that light further away to your back or lowering its position may help the face shadows and hair color. Clothing would still be a problem here.

As a rough rule of thumb I would like to see the center of the light cone shine on the center of attention in the image. As it is currently, the light cone seems to light the clothing + arm of girl nr 2, which is a very uninteresting and distracting part of the image. Also, knowing you own some of those creamy nikkors, may I suggest some shallower depth trials. It's not like you need to extract every bit of excruciatingly sharp detail in this type of "landscape" subject...